DIY ISS Notify Lamp Glows When The ISS Is Overhead

Of course, when the ISS really is overhead, you won’t see it by looking out your window. Except if you’re packing a telescope that is. Anyway, there’s this aerospace enthusiast and all around coder genius Nathan who built himself a specially programmed lamp that illuminates his desk with glowing light every time the ISS is orbiting up in the night sky.

Bad comparisons aside, Nathan wanted a device on his desktop that glowed whenever the ISS passed overhead,. Why? Allow him to explain:

The International Space Station (ISS) is a marvel of current technology and humanity. It’s a continuously inhabited orbital outpost, floating in space just over our heads. But often we forget it’s there. I realized that the light I made for asteroids would work better for the space station.

The material nathan used for his specialized lamp came from a previous DIY project and some plexiglass he bought at a favorite store of his. Assembling the exterior was the easy part, since Nathan is pretty hand at crafts. The greater challenge invovled programming his lamp.

Fulfilling the glow lamp’s function was indeed a bit of a hurdle. If it were to light up whenever the ISS passed overhead the lamp needed a programmed signal. To accomplish this end, Nathan went practical and fell back on his hacking talent. He wrote code for a specialized app, or gnome applet, that could tell when a satellite was passing his crib.

For the whole detailed reveal on his desktop DIY project, don’t hesitate to open the source link below